According to court docs, Cem began communicating with the victim on Facebook. A few weeks ago, the victim told police she tried to stop communicating with him, but he wouldn’t leave her alone.

On March 24, the victim left Illinois with her brother to attend her cousin’s wedding the following day in Southport, Indiana. While the victim was en route, Cem contacted her and told her he was traveling from Lifeway Baptist University, where he is a student in Jacksonville, Florida, to meet her in Southport for the wedding. The victim had never met Cem in person and she had no desire to ever meet him, so she ignored his texts and calls.

Cem showed up to the wedding and took the victim’s phone, refusing to give it back because he wanted to go through it and see why she no longer wanted to be with him. He also said he wanted to check for his picture in her phone “so that he would know she still loved him.”

After the wedding, the victim tried to get her phone back from Cem, but he said he wouldn’t give it back until she got in his car with him to talk.

Once they were in his car, Cem started driving away from the church. He told her he was going to “steal” her, take her back to his home in Georgia, and force her to marry him. The victim told Cem to let her out and tried to get out of the car, but Cem told her he couldn’t let her leave because “he loved her.”

The victim grabbed the steering wheel and tried to force the gear shifter into park, forcing Cem to stop on the side of I-65 southbound near mile marker 93.

Court documents state that Cem grabbed her and forced her into the backseat of the car. He then told her he was going to impregnate her so she could not leave him and would be forced to marry him. Cem then tried to rape the victim.

At that time, Trooper Joseph Malone arrived at the scene and saw the victim screaming and trying to escape. Cem’s pants were unbuckle and his genitalia was out. Cem was forcibly removed from atop the victim by the trooper, and he was placed in handcuffs.

"My training kicked in, I just removed the situation, I neutralized the threat," Trooper Malone said. "You could see the general relief coming off the lady's face as he was in handcuffs."

Malone credits the public with calling 911 for helping save the woman.

"I greatly thank the public because if the public didn't say anything then this situation would have escalated to an even worse situation," he said.